


From the Ashes

by auselysium



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-29 00:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3876319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auselysium/pseuds/auselysium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Chrissie leaves Robert soaked in petrol, fearing for his life, Aaron is there to help him come to terms with the memories her attack has revived.  In the process, perhaps they can come to terms with each other too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Ashes

He might as well be on fire.

After all, that’s what she’d wanted him to think was going to happen when she’d flung the petrol container at him, dousing him with the cloying, slick oil before slamming the door and locking it.

He’d screamed his throat raw for her as the fuel pooled around his feet, begging her to come back and let him out.  All it would have taken was even the smallest flicker of a flame, the spark of match being struck, or even the focused light of the too-hot afternoon sun for everything around him to blaze.  

The fear of it had been enough to bring to the fore childhood memories seared crystal clear into his subconscious mind of a different barn, a different fire, a different name being screamed in futile desperation.   

Even now, every vein in his body is alight, boiling with panic and fear in turn. He blinks slowly between swells of tears, his eyes half-lidded against the constant sting.  His clothes, soaked through and ruined, cling uncomfortably to his skin and he can nearly taste the gas in his mouth.  

“Why does it smell like the inside of the bloody garage in here?”

He hears Aaron’s voice followed by the creak of the floorboards from overhead.  How did he even get back to pub?  He can’t quite remember.    

“Robert?”  Aaron stills on the bottom step, hand resting on the railing.  “Did something happen to your car?”  He asks, but he then he sees the dire look in Robert’s eyes.  “What’s happened?" He asks cautiously.  "Why are you covered in petrol?”

The sight of Aaron’s concerned face in front of him is enough to snap Robert back to his senses.  

“She knows,”  Robert says, swallowing deep.  “About the affair.”  

“Chrissie did this?”  Aaron’s eyes flare with disbelief.

Robert gives a terse not.  “She must have overheard us talking yesterday.  She lured me out to one of the outhouses on the farm, drenched me in this then locked me in.”  Robert’s voice wavers as his eyes become distant, slipping into the memory of what had happened.  Aaron takes a step closer, giving him something real to focus on.  

“How’d you get out, then?”

“I found some rotting boards in the back.  I kicked them down and crawled out.”

Aaron runs a palm over his face, suddenly feeling intensely protective and absolutely incensed at the same time.  But he knows, right now, neither of those emotions are what Robert needs.

“Come on,” Aaron says, taking hold of his jacket cuff.  “Let’s just get you into the shower, yeah?”

Robert follows Aaron to his room, yielding and still very much shell shocked.  With the door closed and the two of them alone, Robert takes a steadying breath, reminding himself he's safe here, and the adrenaline that had been coursing through him, keeping him going since leaving farm, begins to abate leaving in its wake a hollow chill.

Aaron goes to his bureau, retrieving a pair of sweats and a clean shirt for Robert.  

“Well, off with it then,” Aaron insists as he turns back around to see Robert standing stock still,  eyes focused blindly on the floor.

Robert blinks twice at him then takes off his blazer.

Aaron has watched Robert undress countless times, even watched him undress in this room.  But this time, Robert's fingers shake, scrabbling at the buttons on his shirt.  He looks confused,  almost unsure of what to do.

“Let me,”  Aaron says,  reaching for the button at Robert’s collar.   

“I can do it,”  Robert snaps, knocking at Aaron’s hands.

“No, actually, you can’t, so just shove off and let me help you.”  

Finally admitting defeat, Robert drops his hands to his side just as his teeth begin to chatter.

Aaron carefully undoes each button, easing the shirt over Robert’s shoulders.  His skin is red from the drenched fabric being pressed against him for too long.  Aaron undoes his belt buckle, slipping it from the loops.  Robert manages to slip his trousers off over his hips on his own, stepping out of them like a small child might.  His right shin is badly bruised, with a cut oozing across the bone from where he must have kicked through the wall.  Aaron encourages Robert to sit on edge of his bed, kneeling down so he can take off his shoes.  The leather is ruined, the laces brittle from the dried oil.   

“I kept thinking about my mum.”

Robert's voice is thick and heartbreaking and Aaron looks up to see tears welling in his eyes.  Not watering from the irritation, but filing with actual tears.  It hits him that this is the first time he’s ever seen Robert cry.

“I’d never been able to fully comprehend what she must have felt in those last minutes.  How scared she must have been.  I was face to face with that today...and it was...horrifying.”

His words trail off, his expression full of dreadful what if's.

Aaron had only been a small boy when that fire had happened.  Back then he's just caught small bits of a story he couldn’t fully comprehend only to hear it again as an adult and truly grasp the horror.  Everyone in Emmerdale knew about Sarah Sugden’s heinous demise at her adopted son’s ill-intentioned hand.  

“Shit, Robert,” Aaron breathes, “I didn’t think…”  He joins Robert on the bed.  Even with just his boxers on, the scent of fuel is still strong, clinging to his hair, seeped into each pore.  Aaron sneaks a glance at him.  Robert is positively wrecked.

"I can’t believe that Chrissie would do this to you,” Aaron goes on.  “She had to have known it would completely do your head in.”

“Yeah if she'd known about the fire,”  Robert sniffs, wiping both palms across his cheeks to clear away the tears.  

"She doesn't? "

Robert shakes his head.   “She knows Andy was somehow to blame for her death but she doesn’t know exactly what happened.”

Aaron looks at him, disbelieving.  “You never told your wife about how your mum died?”  

“She wasn’t really my real mum.”  Robert mutters with a shrug.

“Yeah, but she was as good as,” Aaron insists, thinking briefly of Paddy, almost insulted for the memory of her that Robert would try to play down their relationship when he knows full well just how much she had meant to him.  "Why wouldn’t you talk to her about that?”

Robert looks pointedly at him.  “There are a lot of things I don’t tell Chrissie, aren’t there?”

Aaron bites at the inside of his lip.   After he feels his heart speed up under the intensity of Robert’s gaze, he says, “I’ll get you a towel."

Robert pushes himself off the bed, moving with a whole body exhaustion that can only be brought on by an extreme emotional onslaught.  

Aaron waits for the sound of the shower, still feeling a bit stunned himself.   How could Chrissie take things so far?  Yes, what he and Robert had been in embroiled in the past five months is a terrible betrayal of trust, but to put Robert’s life on the line, to traumatize him in such horrific fashion?  Aaron didn’t know Chrissie had it in her.  

And he hates her for it.

Aaron cleans up Robert’s clothes, most of which are beyond saving.  He stuffs them into a trash bag, takes them down to the bins behind the pub and is already back upstairs by the time Robert returns from the shower.  

“How have I never noticed how short you are,” Robert says, indicating where the pants Aaron gave him to wear barely cover his ankles.  Aaron laughs softly, giving Robert a relieved smile.  

Robert, however, still holds himself with too much tension, his stomach still knotted too tight.  He thought the mild jab at Aaron might have helped to relieve some of the anxiety he feels, but it didn’t.

He sits back on Aaron’s bed as Aaron rests his shoulder against the closed door.  Robert drops the towel to the floor and his face to his hands, rubbing again and again at his still burning eyes.  Aaron watches, uncertain of what happens next.  

He can’t help but think of that fumbled kiss from a few nights previous and Robert’s sincere apology the following day.  It had left them in the murky, gray area they seem to thrive in - neither one ready to admit what they really want from the other.  What part must have Chrissie heard to send her on such a heartless rampage?

“Feel any better?”  Aaron asks.

“I can still smell it on me,”  Robert answers.  He gestures at his face, a bitter grimace on his lips.  “Taste it.  It’s everywhere.”   

Robert’s chin begins to tremble and this time Aaron is compelled towards him, unable to stop himself in the face of Robert’s tears as he falls to his knees in front of him.  He rests his hands on Robert’s knees, strong and reassuring.

Aaron kneels up, letting his hands slide up Robert’s thighs as he does.  He brushes his nose against Robert's jaw, inhaling deeply.  He sits back to look Robert square in the eyes.

“You smell like my shower gel,”  He says.

Robert’s eyes fall closed and a tear slips down his cheek.  

Then Aaron leans in, pressing a slow, chaste kiss to Robert's trembling lips.  Aaron hears Robert’s breath hitch and he pulls back, just enough to touch their foreheads together.  

“You taste like Robert,” Aaron whispers.

Robert’s hands come up to cup the back of Aaron’s head, holding him in place.  He begins stroking the short hair at the nape of his neck.  Neither make a further move to kiss so Aaron simply offers up his comfort to his former-possible-current-always lover and Robert takes it, gratefully.   

“She doesn’t know it’s you, by the way,” Robert says as he drops his hands away, running a hand through his shower wet hair.  “She kept yelling about finding out who this ‘slapper, whore’ was.”  

“Bit off the mark then, isn’t she?”  Aaron says, lightly.

Robert laughs, sardonically, through his nose.  “Just another one of the things Chrissie doesn’t know about me.  But, you…,” His eyes narrow at Aaron, taking on a quizzical nature.  “You know everything about me.  The robbery, the caravan, Katie, all the lies I’ve told to keep that covered up and yet, here you are.”

“You didn’t always give me a choice, did you?”   

Robert is quiet for a moment as he catalogues the laundry list of offenses he’s committed.  To Aaron.  For Aaron.  Always Aaron.  There is wonder in his voice when he speaks again, as he fully comprehends just how undeserving of Aaron’s friendship, trust, love he might be.  

“I’ve really raked you over the coals, haven’t I?”

Aaron stands, hands going to his pockets.

“I’m not going to disagree with you.”

It’s an unexpected moment of honesty between them, bred from Robert’s vulnerability.  Here in this room, with Robert wearing Aaron’s clothes, his wife having violated him in unbelievable and unexpected ways, they have this chance to be true to each and to themselves.  Finally, there are no facades left to maintain.  No pretense to uphold.

Just the two of them, plainly honest.

It feels like an ending.

"Maybe I should never have kissed you that day on the side of the road," Robert says, softly.

"Maybe I should never have kissed you back."  

Robert's jaw works, as he nods, understanding.  His whole body suddenly looking like it's just become far too heavy for him to hold up any longer.

"I'll let you rest,” Aaron says he notices.  “You want me to tell anyone - Diane or Vic - about what's happened?"

"No. It would only make them worry."  Robert sinks down onto Aaron's pillow, curling up on his side.  Aaron gets a light blanket from the foot of his bed, covering his legs.  The last thing Robert needs to feel right now is too hot.  

When Aaron looks at him again Robert’s eyes are watching him, heavy and clear.  

"Just promise me something?"  Aaron says, returning the candid gaze.

"Anything."  

"Don't go back to her.  Not after this."

Robert slips a hand out from under the pillow and reaches for Aaron.  His hand fits easily into Robert’s large palm.  Giving Aaron’s hand a firm squeeze, along with the faintest hint of a weary smile, Robert says, "Why would I?"

And that, feels like a beginning.

  
  
  
  



End file.
